Abschied von gestern – (1966)

Drama /
7.0/10

Abschied von gestern – Storyline

The film tells the story of Anita G., a young East German migrant to West Germany and her struggle to adjust to her new life.

Abschied von gestern – Photos

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Abschied von gestern – Movie Reviews

“What separates us from yesterday is not a rift but a change in position”

This is the first film I’ve seen from Alexander Kluge and I had no idea what to expect. As I watched it, my first thoughts were that it had a lot of the French New Wave or was just heavily part of the European Art Cinema—I wasn’t very sure when it had been made. The documentary, broken approach seemed interesting and completely burst that bubble of the typical cinematic experience were as a viewer I was almost pushed to be part of.

I really appreciate what films like this did to filmmaking, starting with the very purpose and artistic value of films and their contra-position to the common entertaining commercial product films soon became after they were introduced into an industry. These films were necessary to go back to the origins of film and its true essence. Many films of this era abandoned the classic ways of making films and that’s how they got closer to the truth of film. I think movies like “The Bicycle Thief” (1948) or “The 400 Blows” (1959) or “Kes” (1969) achieved to capture life in a very honest way. But I feel soon this achievement got corrupted, became a concept and lost its way and awareness. It led to films that broke all the typical rules of filmmaking and spoke of certain societies and real socio-political situations, but, in my humble opinion, I believe they failed to capture life despite of how spontaneous and realistic they tried to be. They created “rules” from their own anti-rules approach and I feel there was just too much ego and ambition in all this. I believe film is not really about characters, stories, music, places, situations, dialogs, etc.— not even about all of them put together as it is so commonly believed. Film is much more than that. It captures times and truth in an unique way. And, comparing this very idealistic definition of films and the influence of European Art Cinema—and every other movement of that time—is where my opinion about “Yesterday Girl” comes from. I feel, since this kind of films are very authorial, Alexander Kluge, just like maybe Ingmar Bergman when he made “Summer with Monika” (1953), was struggling between what the audience expected and what his inspiration was telling him to do, especially considering this was his first full-length feature. But despite of all this, which is only ideas that have little to do with the film itself, I think this film is a must-see because if you somehow manage to see beyond a few devised attractions here and there, like the shots of people talking to the camera, sudden cuts, alternate editing with images that contrast against the emotional narrative of the main scene, that in my opinion, still have a sort of beauty and awareness, you might see a substantial beauty and poetry, especially towards the final scenes. And also even before that, there are glimpses of Kluge’s own vision and sensitivity which I’m now looking forward to watching more in his films.

An experimental film to watch!

Yesterday Girl follows a 22-year-old woman named Anita, who moves to West Germany in order to find a better life. The film begins with a trial where she is accused of stealing a coat from her coworker. Other than this being a minor petty crime, the judge also asks her superfluous questions about her Jewish heritage. The rest of the film continues to document Anita’s alienation from society, as she switches jobs every so often and has difficulty finding meaningful relationships.

The film reflects the struggle of German filmmakers from that era to process the past and the intergenerational guilt. In the Oberhausen manifesto, Kluge and other filmmakers expressed their desire to break from the previous cinematic tradition and make something completely new. This can be seen in the style of the film which is quite different from the Heimatfilme of WW2: documentary-like, with quick abrupt cuts, use of a moving camera and a fair amount of montage. Kluge often lets the camera rather than the story itself highlight the coldness of society towards Anita and the restless pace of her lifestyle.

Personally, I really enjoyed the experimental camera techniques and storytelling in this film, but I found the abrupt cuts to be at times somewhat confusing to the storyline. If the avant-garde style is something you enjoyed and you also happen to be interested in architecture, I would highly recommend checking out Kluge’s short film – Brutality in Stone.

Yesterday Girl: An Expressionistic View on Breaking Free

In the 1966 movie Yesterday Girl, Anita G. Is depicted as a young woman trying to start a new life in West Germany. She is playful and childlike in her actions and movements, and she ignores any consequences her decisions entail. Viewers consistently see this throughout the film: Anita moves from place to place without paying her bills, she has fleeting relationships with married men, and she doesn’t seem to take any lines of work very seriously. From one moment to the next, Anita G. Has packed her bags and left the connections she has made, only to start again somewhere else and make the same mistakes. Anita’s character speaks to the larger idea of growing up, and the confusion that comes with it. She seems almost stuck in time, with her rash incompliance with the law and people’s expectations eventually landing her in jail. However, Anita also represents courage, individuality, and rebellion in reaction to the workings of German society in the 1960s. Enveloped in the divide between East and West Germany, the German people fell into a hole of sexual oppression and strict familial ideals. Without room to breathe, German youth especially felt a lack of freedom in their day-to-day lives. The strong urge to be employed was also very apparent during this time: viewers see this routinely as Anita jumps from one job to the next, urged by the people around her to take anything that pays. Anita’s personal experience of West Germany, and her refusal to become part of the masses reflects on the overall sentiment of German youth after the construction of the Berlin Wall: compliance with the current societal norms was to be pushed away, in favor of being their individual selves and feeling alive.

Stepping into the history of cinema, Yesterday Girl was part of the avant-garde cinematographic movement of the 1960s. Films had ceased to be purely a form of entertainment, with typical storylines and conventional character types pushed aside for abstract modes of expression. Everything from the camera to sound started to be used to express metaphorical ideas and concepts, and directors realized their expanding freedom in constructing their films. This rejection of traditional cinema practices was vocally expressed in 1960s Germany with the Oberhausen Manifesto, which declared that “the future of the German film lies in the hands of those who have proven that they speak a new film language”. This new language mentioned allowed experimentation within the young directing community, which is exactly what film director Alexander Kluge does with Yesterday Girl. From the long close-ups of Anita G., to the sudden montages of dream-like scenarios (such as Anita running away from policemen in a field), the viewer is left with a cinematic experience that allows them to draw their own conclusions of the characters and situations within the plot. Nothing is shown up-front: in this new form of cinema, the director constructs scenes that connects with a feeling or idea. In this film’s case, viewers connect with Anita G.’s feelings of boredom and recklessness in the reaction to the world around her.

Personally, The disjointed montages and visceral close-ups in Yesterday Girl spoke to my feelings of being a young woman in today’s world. The ongoing pressure from society to be successful and the economic pressures that accompany it has the current youth lost and confused at the turning point in their life. The visual choices Kluge makes in his film draws parallels with this concept, and the sudden desire to “break free” took hold of me throughout Anita G.’s story, even if her life ends up falling apart. These sentiments and ideas that I had only proves that Kluge successfully produced an avant-garde film: the viewer has to reach within themselves to derive meaning from the film they are watching.

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